Motor vehicles are often intended to be sold in multiple markets, such as different countries continents, or regions. These vehicles are typically designed so that they can be configured differently for each market. The configurations can vary based on driver preferences, driving style differences, country-specific regulatory requirements, and other factors.
As an example, the configuration of vehicular traffic flow on two-way streets is not consistent across all countries. In countries such as the United States of America and Mexico, vehicles on a two-way street drive along the right hand side of the street. In these countries, either by law or by driver preference, vehicles are typically configured as left-hand drive models, meaning that the driver controls are positioned on the left hand side of the vehicle. In countries such as the United Kingdom and Japan, vehicles on a two-way street drive along the left hand side of the street. In these countries, either by law or by driver preference, vehicles are typically configured as right-hand drive models, meaning that the driver controls are positioned on the right hand side of the vehicle.
To satisfy the requirement of providing left hand drive vehicles for some markets and right hand drive vehicles for other markets, some vehicle manufacturers will simply sell dedicated models that are intended to be sold only in one of the two types of markets. Given the significant investment involved in vehicle design and production, however, other vehicle manufacturers choose to produce a single vehicle model in both right hand drive and left hand drive configurations. This allows one vehicle model to be sold in both left hand drive markets and right hand drive markets, but requires that different parts be produced for each version. The number of configuration-specific parts can be reduced by designing the parts to be symmetrical laterally, that is, in a cross-car direction. To the extent that this cannot be done, manufacturing costs are increased by the need to design and build the additional tooling that will be needed to manufacture the configuration-specific parts.